Wednesday, 31 October 2012

The Walking Dead: Cold Storage - the month got off to an undead start with a rather good webisode series directed by KNB effects master Greg Nicotero. Surprisingly dark in places, it provided a nice little side-bar teaser to the forthcoming main event later in the month.

Fangoria's Blood & Guts with Scott Ian - the Nerdist channel on YouTube has introduced a great new show that targets horror nerds in its sights. The Anthrax guitarist visits various effects houses (starting, naturally, with KNB Effects) and explores the world of special make-up effects - often involving gallons of glorious fake blood.

Cinemassacre's Monster Madness 2012 "80s-a-thon" - every year James Rolfe gets into the Halloween spirit and reviews various horror flicks throughout the month of October. This month was dedicated to the frightful sights of the 1980s.

Click "READ MORE" for more looks, sounds, vibes & flavours of October 2012...

Sunday, 28 October 2012

Umberto (Cannibal Ferox, Nightmare City)
Lenzi's brash poliziotteschi crime thriller kicks off in grand style, with a
botched bank robbery that leads to a frenzied car chase filled with screaming
rubber and battered metal – a sequence that best demonstrates Eugenio (The
Good, The Bad, and The Ugly) Alabiso's tight editing. Blamed for
ruining the score, Giulio Sacchi (Tomas Milian, full of twitchy energy)
is introduced as an unreliable low-level hoodlum on Italy's crime-ridden
streets, a man with enough chips on his shoulder to fill-out a fish supper.
What's more, he's not above killing a policeman for a mere 600 lira stolen from
a cigarette machine, in this film where the usual Italian glamour is replaced
by uncompromising grit.

Screenwriter Ernesto (The Strange Vice of Mrs Wardh)
Gastaldi's vision of Italy exposes a society ruled by a totally corrupt legal
system which fails to enact the basic intentions of law and order. Criminals
are routinely let off the hook due to a lack of evidence, and it is with this
knowledge that Giulio sets about coming up with a scheme to net him some fat
cash.

Saturday, 27 October 2012

WHAT WE LEARNED:
* Bear McCreary's music has taken a step up. It was always good, but the intense dramatic moments of these first two episodes have born witness to heart-pounding, driving pieces on the soundtrack.

* I forgot to mention last time, but the new opening sequence is great. Covering key images from the second season (such as the Cherokee Rose flower, Hershel's watch, the farmhouse and more), it looks forward to what's to come.

* T-Dog might have a bit of a naff weapon (a fire poker), but he sure knows how to wield it effectively.

* Hershel, in the intervening months, has taught Carol a thing or two about medicine.

* Rick's competitive side is unleashed. It's survival of the fittest now, and Rick is willing to stand his ground for the good of his group. He barters a trade with the five inmates - half their food in exchange for assisting them in clearing out another cellblock for them to live in separately.

Friday, 26 October 2012

Time for a progress update - put simply, the first draft of the script for "Mug" (the first-of-three episodes which make up Eyes In Your Window), was completed today. As this is a spec script, and a three-part post-watershed drama serial to boot, you don't have to write all three (or however many you've chosen) episodes. Instead you write the first episode, and then map out the other two (or however many you've chosen).

Thursday, 25 October 2012

Remakes are a funny old game, as I've remarked before, most recently when stating that a flick which would make for a good remake is Drive-In Massacre. One of the biggest problems with remakes that I find, however, is
that they can never live up to the vibe that the original exudes. The scope
of the remake is far larger, the production design is through-the-roof
comparatively, and in-place of discovering a long-established classic during
your formative years with fellow-minded classmates, you've got the big
marketing push with the inevitable appearance at a Comic-Con.

This brings me to the 2013 remake of The Evil Dead –
as first shown to us at the 2012 New York Comic-Con – and it has my fanboy mind
all over the place. I'm a huge admirer of the original movie (which I first
saw aged 14 after buying a VHS copy – which was at the time still severely cut
by the BBFC – from my local post office), so the first mention a while back
of the film being remade, sent we horror fans into a right old tizzy. The
announcement that Diablo Cody would be heading up screenwriting duties was
controversial enough in itself, but on the other hand – under the banner of
Ghost House Pictures – the original creators of the The Evil Dead were
actively involved, and had picked an unknown (Fede Alvarez) for directing duties (an offer
that no sane aspiring filmmaker would turn down).

Saturday, 20 October 2012

Each week I'll be doing a run-down of each episode from season 3 - a sort of week-by-week episode-by-episode debrief, if you will - so with the triumphant return of AMC's superb zombie apocalypse drama, onwards to the 3x01 "Seed"...

WARNING: EPISODE 3x01 SPOILERS AHEAD!

WHAT WE LEARNED:
* After months on the road, surviving winter in the process, our merry band of walker bashers have developed into a team with a procedure for clearing a house and searching for survivors. However, while desperate, Rick won't allow them to stoop to eating dog food - a prospect that a much more hardened (and responsible) Carl doesn't take issue with.

* Michonne and Andrea have formed a tight duo (with accompanying chained zombies). This will be an interesting dynamic to follow as the season progresses, particularly when Woodbury is introduced (no doubt in 3x02 or at a push 3x03).

* The gang have developed their own tools - silencers made out of torches (or flashlights to our American friends), locks made out of chains and climbing gear that are ideal for chain link fences, and so on.

What's it about?Fourth sequel in the long-running horror franchise where death uses devilishly inventive ways of picking off those who escape his deadly grasp. A bus load of young business folk are off on a team building weekend, but when one of their number forsees a disastrous bridge collapse, he and a handful of his colleagues escape their grisly fate ... for now.Who would I recognise in it?Emma Bell, Tony Todd, David Koechner, P.J. Byrne, Courtney B. Vance

Wednesday, 17 October 2012

The Walking Dead is a fantastic show and ripe for some excellent memes, and so here is one single post to keep track of the various meme images that I have created for it. This post will be updated with new images as-and-when they're produced. Beware, there's plenty of spoilers ahead...

Tuesday, 9 October 2012

There's always that moment of trepidation before you actually start writing a screenplay. You've got it all planned out, you've got extensive notes, and the whole thing is pretty much right there in your head - now though, you have to physically type it all out, translating the images in the old noggin, into words on a page that people will then read.

Oftentimes procrastination rears its ugly head about now - with the script essentially all there in your head, the creative juices begin to wane a bit (after the planning process where ideas come thick, fast, and in whatever order they want) - but you have to fight past that temptation of goofing off. It can be resolved by a simple action - double clicking that screenplay software icon on your desktop. Double click that and it's open, and then you think 'well seeing as it's open, I might as well write something', and providing the muse is with you, you'll find yourself with five pages under your belt. That in itself is a measure to go by, if you can get five pages written each day, then that's good going - but even still, just writing a mere one paragraph is all progress in the right direction - so if you have a rough day at the keyboard, don't fret - but if that's how each day goes, then perhaps something needs to change.

Click "READ MORE" below to read the first page of "Eyes In Your Window"...

Friday, 5 October 2012

I was watching the round-up of Fright Fest the 13th (a UK horror film festival that reached its thirteenth anniversary this year) on The Horror Channel, and amidst the films glimpsed at was a documentary about the talented folks over at KNB Effects - the go-to-guys for practical make-up effects, whose fingerprints are all over all of the best gore and creature effects of the last twenty years - titled Nightmare Factory (written & directed by Donna Davies) From their humble beginnings on Evil Dead II, the documentary covers what brought these guys together to bring frightful sights to the silver screen, and for any horror nerd (such as myself), this will surely be a must-watch when it is released.

In the meantime, have a glimpse at some clips - I for one am chomping at the bit to get my mits on this documentary. A visit to KNB Effects would be my personal equivalent of Charlie going to the Chocolate Factory.

The Innkeepers:What's it about?
Ti West's follow-up to the chilling, yet restrained, 1980s-set horror The House of the Devil, about a couple of Generation Y slacker-cum-ghost-hunters (Claire and Luke) who are working during the closing weekend of The Yankee Pedlar Inn, a New England hotel with a dark history.Who would I recognise in it?
Sara Paxton, Kelly McGillisGreat/Good/Alright/Shite?
Up front, if you didn't dig the gradual pace and slow-build tension of The House of the Devil, then you'll no doubt find no entertainment here. However, if - like me - you lapped up that flick, then you'll be in familiar and unsettling territory here. West has a real talent for subtle pacing and characterisation - you genuinely like Claire and Luke, who exist in a lazier hotelier's version of Clerks when they're not busy trying to find evidence of supernatural goings on. However, with the arrival of McGillis' actress-turned-healer, and a distanced widower, things begin to take a chilling turn. Each corridor, each picture frame reflection, each silent pause, holds an increasing sense of menace - you don't know whether to trust West or not after a knowing scare at the top of the flick - and this is the charm of the film. It's a classic ghost story that trades on familiar elements to inspire a sense of deja vu in the viewer. Sly hints crop up to continue the subtle guess-work - musical allusions to Ghostbusters, visual winks to The Shining - precisely where we'll end up is deftly hidden, and being that West has a fondness for horror from the genre's heyday, counting on a cosy wrap-up is sorely misguided. Cast with subtle shades and a glacial sense of propulsion, Saw franchise fanboys need not apply, but those keen on tense chills will be well served. Great.

Wednesday, 3 October 2012

The actual writing of this new screenplay is almost about to begin, but before you can get to writing, you have to come up with an idea and flesh it out with a whole slew of ideas. I find that old unused exercise books or journals from school are the ideal thing for this - you can gradually fill a book up over time with new ideas as they come to you, and when you settle on your next chosen project to pursue, everything you already figured out is right there where you want it to be, and then you can add many more details.

Now, the one downside is that ideas don't pop into your head in a linear fashion, nor at any pre-determined time (hence why I'd often come up with a great idea just as I was beginning to fall asleep, and would then have to spend ten minutes writing it all down - at which point I'd be wide awake again). As a result, your book of ideas won't be in any sort of order, and you'll be jumping back-and-forth through the pages to find what you're looking for.

A great way to organise your ideas though, is to use record cards, like in the above image.

Click "READ MORE" below for more info on organising your ideas, and the episode titles for the planned arrangement of three episodes for Eyes In Your Window...

A new show to the Nerdist Channel all about gore and special make-up effects, and the first port of call is of course the legend that is Gregg Nicotero!

In this series premiere episode, join host Scott Ian (Anthrax) as he
spends a day with Legendary FX Artist Greg Nicotero in his KNB EFX's
studio. See Nicotero's vast prop collection from throughout his career
and also experience an awe inspiring bit of Blood and Guts.

As a big horror fan, and a keen follower of KNB's work, this was a real joy to watch. Just nerding out over the various props and replicas was satisfying enough, but then they 'kill' three zombies to finish the video off, haha!

About Me

I am a British freelance filmmaker, as well as a writer, movie fanatic, and zombie obsessive. I am the author of "Dug Deep" and the "Celebrityville" series of books, and write for Sleaze Fiend Magazine and Homepage of the Dead. I'm the screenwriter for the upcoming film "For Want of a Nail".
Of the many filmmakers who influence me, some are: Romero, Raimi, Carpenter, Cameron, Fincher, Tarantino, Rodriguez, Kubrick, Boyle, Zombie, Martino, Fulci, Argento, Cronenberg, Marshall, Smith, Nolan, Dominik, Scott, Mann, Hooper, De Palma, Leone, Spielberg and Zemeckis.